Transformed into a heartthrob's simp, every day is a battleground.

Chapter 281 Witchcraft

Yan Xun didn't think Shuangshuang was lying.

In the ward, the strange man reeked of a foul stench, which only Shuangshuang and her grandmother could smell; her parents showed no reaction.

"I wasn't there that day?"

“You’re not here.” Shuangshuang got angry when she said this. “You said you were too busy with school and didn’t have time.”

"That uncle has always lived in the same room as Grandma?" Yan Xun asked again.

Shuangshuang nodded.

“But he has no one to take care of him,” Shuangshuang said. “I overheard them whispering that occasionally a boy comes to take care of him, saying he’s a distant relative.”

Yan Xun never expected that he would get Xie Qingdu's information and that of his distant relatives from Shuangshuang.

"Have you seen that boy?" Yan Xun asked.

Shuangshuang shook her head.

“I heard from them that he doesn’t come often.”

"And he didn't have a very good relationship with that uncle."

“Every time I come over, I just silently clean the house, and occasionally I chat with my grandma for a few words.”

Shuangshuang then said to Yanxun, "Grandma misses you very much."

"She even praises you to other people occasionally!"

"I'm praising you for getting into a good university."

Yan Xun thought to himself, if that's the case, Xie Qingdu might actually learn of his existence from his grandmother.

Perhaps feeling bored after spending too much time in the kitchen, Shuangshuang craned her neck to look at the remaining snacks in the plastic bag, but finding none she wanted, she said to Yanxun, "Brother, don't tell Mom and Dad, I want to eat an ice pop."

Yan Xun opened the freezer compartment, picked out the smallest one, and handed it to her, saying, "Don't eat this and then you won't be able to eat dinner."

Shuangshuang ignored him after getting the popsicle.

Yan Xun squatted down beside her. "Has Grandma always been unwell?"

Shuangshuang bit into her popsicle, her words muffled, "Things used to be fine."

“Our house used to be so lively,” Shuangshuang told Yanxun. “Grandma had so many friends, and people would often come to visit her.”

She raised her hands to gesture a large area, saying, "Many people come specifically to see her."

“Our old house was also very, very big.”

“But then we moved to a smaller house,” Shuangshuang said. “Grandma’s health wasn’t very good either.”

Yan Xun remembered the book in the storage room... and suspected that the grandmother's friends that Shuangshuang mentioned were the clients who came to visit her.

“I heard from my dad that my uncle really dislikes my grandma’s friends,” Shuangshuang said. “So he left home as soon as he turned 18 and went out to wander around.”

Perhaps because she harbored some resentment towards her younger brother, Shuangshuang's retelling was filled with her father's lack of understanding.

"It seems that Dad and Uncle don't get along very well," Yan Xun said.

Shuangshuang is unaware of the subtle relationships between adults; even brothers will have friction as they grow up.

Not to mention the difficult issue of supporting the elderly.

Yan Xun knew he couldn't get any more clues from Shuangshuang, so he patted his pants and stood up, saying, "Eat slowly, no one's going to take it from you."

Shuangshuang didn't care. She finished her popsicle in a few bites and then shoved the stick at Yan Xun, saying, "You throw it away."

"You want me to cover for you while you eat popsicles?" Yan Xun said, but still took the stick and wrapper in his hand and left the kitchen with Shuangshuang.

Shuangshuang was probably feeling guilty. She hurriedly greeted Lou Yanchuan and then ran up to the third floor.

Lou Yanchuan looked at Shuangshuang's retreating figure, then at Yan Xun clutching the wrapper, and asked, "What's wrong with her?"

"I guess he's worried you'll find out he's sneaking popsicles and then report it to his parents." Yan Xun crumpled the wrapper in her hand, threw it into the trash can, and then told Lou Yanchuan about the man in the ward.

"It seems Xie Qingdu really did meet his grandmother at the Anxin Sanatorium," Yan Xun said.

But even after arriving here, he hadn't unlocked any new memories, so he could only look at Lou Yanchuan and ask, "What about you?"

"Any new discoveries?"

Lou Yanchuan sat in a wheelchair.

He lowered his eyes, as if he were thinking.

A few minutes later, he looked up at Yan Xun and said, "I vaguely remember what Shuangshuang said about many people coming to look for Grandma."

“That must have been about 5 years ago,” Lou Yanchuan pondered. “Shuangshuang was probably around 5 years old at that time.”

“You were a high school student living at school at the time, and you could only come back for half a day on weekends, so it’s normal that you didn’t know about this.”

“At that time, I probably only stayed at home for four or five days at most in six months, so I didn’t know much about this,” Lou Yanchuan said. “The house back then…” He looked around, “was bigger than the one now.”

“I live on the second floor and can see a constant stream of cars coming and going at the entrance.”

"But generally speaking, many cars are waiting far away, and no more than five cars actually get close to the door."

"Perhaps because of their special status, everyone who came in was holding a black umbrella to shield themselves from being spied on."

"I was standing on the second floor, and all I could see were black umbrella tops."

"Where is Grandma?" Yan Xun asked.

“I’ve never seen her before,” Lou Yanchuan said. “She has never appeared in this part of my memory.”

"However, I do know a little about the person Shuangshuang mentioned who smells terrible," Lou Yanchuan said. "It has nothing to do with this instance."

“I once went to a dungeon that mentioned a secret witchcraft. People who are under the influence of this witchcraft will rot from the inside out, and the person can experience the feeling of rotting while still alive.”

"But strangely, no matter how many tests were done, the results always showed that the person was in good health."

“Some people may even look healthier than before they were under the influence of witchcraft.”

"Their complexions were rosy, and apart from the constant look of pain on their faces, you couldn't tell that their bodies were rotting."

“In the beginning, only the person involved could smell the rotten stench of witchcraft.”

"Then came some people who were skilled in witchcraft, or who were sensitive to it," Lou Yanchuan said. "And as the decay deepened, gradually, even some ordinary people could smell a faint stench."

"But it's not obvious; at most, it just means you haven't showered."

"If ordinary people can also smell that unbearable stench," Lou Yanchuan paused for a moment, "that only means one thing."

"what?"

“His body had completely decomposed from the inside out, leaving only a skeleton and a layer of skin,” Lou Yanchuan said. “Usually, when ordinary people can smell that stench that resembles a rotting corpse, the person will die suddenly the next day.”

"What's even stranger is that the time of death is often several months prior."

"It's as if the person who's been alive all this time has been a dead man."

"They are walking corpses that move only through their skin and skeleton."

Lou Yanchuan looked at Yan Xun and said, "Perhaps Xie Qingdu's distant relative was under such witchcraft."

If what Lou Yanchuan said is true, then Grandma Yanxun's role in the ward is somewhat ambiguous.

Was she really just watching over him?

Or was it an outside help he brought in?

As for those visitors in the past, Yan Xun felt that most of them were seeking her grandmother's help.

But the question is, why has my grandmother, who is so amazing that people flock to visit her from afar, become bedridden in recent years?